On this episode Garrison interviews David Santoro, President of the Pacific Forum and an expert on strategic deterrence, stability, arms control and more. The two have an in-depth discussion regarding the Pacific Forum’s landmark 2022 publication “US-China Mutual Vulnerability: Perspectives on the Debate”. Santoro embarks on a wide-ranging discussion on the varying perspectives between Washington and Beijing on mutual vulnerability, factors influencing the discussions (and lack thereof), and the need for strategic dialogue across the Pacific and beyond (including with fellow nuclear power Russia). The two also discuss the issue of nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran and dawn of a multipolar nuclear world of crisis management/diplomacy. The entire Pacific Forum report is available here. David Santoro is President of the Pacific Forum. He specializes in strategic deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation. Santoro’s current interests focus on great-power dynamics and US alliances, particularly the role of China in an era of nuclear multipolarity. His new volume U.S.-China Nuclear Relations – The Impact of Strategic Triangles was published by Lynne Rienner in May 2021. Santoro also leads several of the Forum’s track-1.5 and track-2 strategic dialogues. Before joining the Pacific Forum, Santoro worked on nuclear policy issues in France, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the spring of 2010, he was also a Visiting Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and, in 2010-2011, he was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Santoro is co-editor, with Tanya Ogilvie-White, of Slaying the Nuclear Dragon (University of Georgia Press, 2012) and author of Treating Weapons Proliferation (Palgrave, 2010). His essays have been published in several foreign policy monograph series and journals, including The Nonproliferation Review, Proliferation Papers, Survival, and The Washington Quarterly, and his op-eds have appeared in The Bangkok Post, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Japan Times, PacNet, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he earned a M.S. of International Relations, as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) at Liberty University in the United States. He has had the privilege of interviewing some of the leading policymakers and experts of our time, including Robert B. Zoellick, Elbridge Colby, Richard Fontaine, Andrew Roberts, Ivan Briscoe, Vishnu Prakash, Rajiv Bhatia, Aparne Pande, Mohammed Soliman and others. Guest opinions are their own. Originally recorded Aug. 25th, 2022.